New CS:S map - Harbor Bank

[SM Sith Lord]

Hey everybody. I just finished my second Counter-Strike: Source map and happened to find your site here at about the same time, so I figured I might as well post my map here too. I have a forum post already formatted, so I'll just paste it below...

MAP NAME: cs_harborbank
DOWNLOAD LINK: Get it from fpsbanana.com
BSP FILESIZE: 28.9 MB (about 9 MB zipped)
DATE RELEASED: January 8th, 2007
PRODUCTION LENGTH: A little over 3 months.
AUTHOR: SM Sith Lord (smsithlord@yahoo.com)
SPAWNPOINTS: 32 terrorist, 32 counter-terrorist, 64 total.




DESCRIPTION:
The terrorists heist of the Harbor Bank has ran into a hitch: they can't get into the vault. Out of desperation they have taken four bank tellers hostage and demanded no police within one city block.

You are free to navigate a full 360 degrees around the exterior of the bank as you see fit, but beware of long range weapon fire.

If you get pinned down by snipers, you are advised to use the city's underground drainage system to get yourself to a better position. It has entrances at every corner of the map.

The bank structure itself is the recommended zone for enemy encounterment. Its upstairs halls and offices should provide sufficient cover for you and your men using even short-range weapons.

The first floor lobby and vault room are more suited for mid-ranged weapons.

The hostage rescue zone is located AT THE HARBOR BOAT DOCKS. INTEL has determined this is the only feasible escape route to get the hostages to safety.

NOTICE:
Due to the "free-roam" nature of this map and the consistent level of detail, some find that it can run sluggish on slower machines. I suggest you try lowering your Counter-Strike advanced video settings if you find yourself with unsatisfactory framerates.

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Now, I will put an insanely lengthly description of the map that I wrote for my portfolio site. As on my site, you don't have to read all this stuff if you don't want to. But incase you are unable to try the map out for yourself, here's what I wrote about it:

Purpose:
* Sustain a free-roam feeling to both the environment and the gameplay centered around an architectually realistic structure.
* Provide seperate combat encounter areas that utilze long, middle, and short ranged weapons respectively.
* Sustain a high level of visual complexity & detail throughout the map.
* Utilize ambient sounds to portray a living environment.

Description:
This is a larger map that is centered about a bank structure and the semi-urban city block that it sits on. The map can be seen as having five distinct parts, each designed to utilize a different set of weaponary.

The exterior of the bank is mostly composed of wide-open areas with large boulders or vehicals scattered about to use as cover; the type of terrain ideal for sniper rifles and long ranged weapons. Both teams start on the exterior of the bank and are expected to storm the structure immidately; however, if a player happens to get pinned down by sniper fire and can't make it to the bank directly, there is a sewer system that runs underneath the entire block that they can use to get to a better position.

The sewers are also best suited for long ranged weapons, but it would be very difficult for a team of snipers to hold both the entire exterior of the bank and the sewers at the same time. There are enterances to the sewers at each corner of the map.

The majority of the combat will take place within the bank structure itself while the attacking team (counter-terrorists) are enroute to the hostages located in the vault area. One method of approach for the counter-terrorists is to enter from the 2nd story of the bank. This floor is composed of small offices and halls designed for short ranged weapons such as shotguns. If the player would rather use middle ranged weapons, he can just walk through the front door of the bank and enter through the lobby.

The spacious lobby of the bank provides cover from most of the exterior but a large windowed wall exposes a portion of it to the snipers that may be lurking outside. For this reason, it is ideal for middle ranged weapons such as assault riffles.

The exterior of the bank, the 2nd floor, and the lobby all converge into the vault area. This is where the defending team is usually camping and waiting for the counter-terrorists to try and rescue the hostages. Because of the variety of environments it is exposed to, it is best suited for middle ranged weapons.

These five destinct areas of the map call for a greater level of strategy and coordination from the players because many of them require specific types of weaponary to efficently defend or attack.

Great care was put into sustaining the environment presented. Realistic surrounding architecture and comically extended views are presented to the player to keep them visiually interested in the game utilzing distance haze to intensify perspective. Ambient sounds can be found everywhere in the map. From the sounds of the costal breeze rushing over the hills to trendy jazz music playing on the PA system in the bathrooms. Birds churping in the trees; office phones that ring in random intervals; noisy crowds in buildings the sewer crosses under; the sounds of radios from nearby appartments; all these can be found plus countless others.

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By the way, I attached that small screenshot to my thread because I figured it would show up next to my topic on the forum. /me crosses fingers

You can click here to see a couple additional images.

[kratos]

wow thats amazing work .. congratulations on that .. going to play it right now

Okay had a playtest .. very nice map .. only had a slight problem with the lights



Are they meant to be like that ? Fluorescent looking ? This affected both mirrors and metal objects.

[doylle]

The pink checker is the default texture when something goes wrong in source, so i'm guessing that something didn't load correct. It worked fine with me.

As for the map, i loved it. Very nice. Everything has a purpose, which i like. I didn't have the feeling that there are rooms just because you have the space (except for the hostage rescue zone). Lightning is good, i like the sunshine...
There is one thing that i noticed. you used alot of props and other stuff to make things more interesting hall, but that has a negative effect on my fps. I experienced some pfs drops mainly outside and in the entrance. I'm running it on a geforce Go 7900 gtx with 512 mb, so i'm guessing that allot of people will have the same problem...

but other than that, great work!

[Cyph3r]

can we have an overhead shot with a dot to signify a size of a CT/T to really see how big the map is?

[WesleyTack]

The purple reflections on the paintings is a missing spec map somewhere. As you see the couch in the same shot also has a purple color on it.

The maps looks nice too, some texture placements i find a bit weird, like in the 1st shot, the overhead part, on the right side of the screen, with the benches below it, is a brick wall, were as in real life you would never see that. It would collapse. This should have been a metal plate texture or something. But overall a really nice map, would almost fit Insurgency

[SM Sith Lord]

I've only gotten those purple reflections after I tabbed out of Source, or changed my video settings after loading the map. I assume if you restart CSS and load up the map again the reflections will work for you again Kratos.

Just want to point out that the strange brick awning on the right of the first pic is hallowed out, not one thick oddly shaped piece for the roof.

Here's an overview shot, you can judge the size of the player based on the cars:


Remember that there are 2 stories in the bank, so there is almost twice the interior floor space shown in this pic.